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Vidicus the Forlorn
Vidicus lived many hundreds of years ago and had a life plagued with misfortune and disaster. According to the tales, he was a Rogue Trader---unusual stock for a saint. He is said to have explored great areas of the sector single-handedly, pushing back its boundaries. During this time, it is said he was a greedy and petty man, who sought only to exploit the worlds he discovered and expand his wealth and power. Like many men in such stories, an unfortunate event taught him the error of his ways and brought him into the light of the Emperor. In Vidicus’s case it was the abduction of his daughter by alien pirates. He became driven to find her and scoured the sector in his search. He also turned completely to the worship of the Emperor and beseeched him for His guidance. What Vidicus received, however, was one disaster after another. First, his crew tried to mutiny and he was forced to lure them into a hold and vent them to the void. Then, his ship became lost in the warp and he was almost overcome by madness before he could return to realspace. Later, he was captured by Orks and only escaped by eating his own hands in an effort to impress his captors. The tales of Vidicus’s quest for his daughter are long and numerous; however, they have two important morals. The first is that no matter how forlorn the hope that he would ever see his daughter again, he never stopped searching. The second is that no matter what adversities the galaxy threw at him, he never lost faith in guidance of the Emperor. Years after Vidicus had vanished in his quest to find his daughter (whose name has oddly never been recorded), a group of clerics wrote an exhaustive treatise on his journeys and deeds. It was from this that the Ministorum recognized his deeds and devotion to the Emperor and raised him to sainthood. Even today there are few worlds in the Calixis Sector that do not have a tale of Vidicus and the time he visited their world seeking his lost child. Though he has no cult, Vidicus has many worshippers. Most people have been touched by tragedy at one time or another or have embarked on a risky or foolish course of action. At these times, they look to Saint Vidicus to preserve them and give them hope. Likewise his shrines can be found throughout the sector, often tucked away in the corners of larger cathedrals, littered with small offerings and prayers. Travelers also often pray to him to guide them safely to their destinations and makeshift shrines exist to him on many vessels. The saint’s name also appears in many common phrases such as, “a Vidicus hope”, meaning something with a very small chance of success, or “following Vidicus”, meaning to obsess about something unattainable. Acolytes have also been known to invoke the name of Vidicus in their missions, sometimes scratching prayers to the saint on the inside of their armor. It is often joked (though out of earshot of any Inquisitors) that Vidicus would have made a good Acolyte.